Chakote

I agree with all of you in the sense that there's too much oversensitive BS butting its nose into this issue.. As we evolve (someone mentioned baby boomers) we turn more and more ever few years into soft, disorder-diagnosing, employee-empowering, euphemism-using pussies, and not enough parents today know how to discipline their kids. There isn't much that bothers me more than seeing a parent taking their disruptive, misbehaving, and undisciplined kid to a psychologist for "ADD" or some other dumb mental disorder to convince themselves they aren't bad parents. As far as to what extent this kind of thing should be permitted, people have common sense (I'm making a generalization here), and need to apply it when they discipline their child. I'm not going to bother outlining how much I think is too much (you can all use your own common sense for that) but there is nothing wrong with slapping your kid across the butt with a spoon in response to a well-strung out temper tantrum. And children don't learn violence from us; if the only way a human can learn violence is by observing another violent human being, we wouldn't have been able to get the violence bandwagon rolling in the first place. I don't think cats learn that they're supposed to catch mice because they watch other cats doing it. Who taught the first cat?

If these people are proven guilty and convicted of the alleged crimes, fine; torture and kill them. But they are suspects, and are innocent until they are given a trial. Those responsible for the unconditional detainment of these unconvicted suspects should be put on trial and convicted for violating these peoples' human rights. Punishment should be harsh. If this were a perfect world, one of the Guantanamo suspects would get a trial, be proven innocent, and sue millions out of the government for violation of human rights.. Seeing these idiots fess up to their immature finger pointing would make me a happier man.

Exactly. We live in a multicultured, multiethnic society where all unharmful forms of belief (religious or otherwise) are accepted and tolerated. We then proceed to impose the views of one religion (the fact that it is Christianity is irrelevant) onto the rest of our country's citizens. I don't believe it makes sense to say "We are a Christian Nation, therefore SSM will not be permitted, but feel free to carry your Kirpan to school, feel free to lecture at your mosque each day, and remember that we live in a free democratic nation, where all forms of unhurtful lifestyle are graciously tolerated." If we (on a formal/judiciary level) will not legally accept any other definition of marriage than as described by the Christian texts, then why do we even allow those of other faiths to legally marry? A muslim or hindu woman and man obviously do not see themselves involved in a marriage as defined by Christianity, just because they happen to live in a (barely) majority Christian nation... It doesn't make sense to impose this one particular factor of Christian faith on the multicultured citizens of this country, without going all the way and making Church compulsory, punishable by fine, etc. Heck, why do some provinces now allow Sunday shopping? Before this even goes to vote, there are many people that should be forced to face up to this hypocrisy, but even in this beautiful nation of ours, they will never be held accountable.

Unless the specified induhvidual is a complete idiot who is devoid of democratic responsibility (in which case they shouldn't even be living in this country; or the US), they should be able to choose which candidate they think will do less damage to the country. Kerry was a complete buffoonish idiot but I would have gladly cast my ballot for him to keep the madman Bush out of office.

What's wrong with permitting a civil union? Although there is really no apparent fundamental distinction from SSM, how many gays do you think are going to get married in a church? Anyone that is against SSM for religious and traditional reasons can surely see the validity of allowing them to pursue their desired lifestyle under the guise of a different relationship as defined "in the books". But then again, this doesn't really touch on the parenting issue, does it...